How To: Hold Effective Office Hours

A Review of My Office Hours with Arizona State University President Michael Crow

As a general rule in life, do not make a big point to emphasize the importance of one thing then blatantly fail to accomplish said thing...

Back in February I registered for the opportunity to participate in President Crow's office hours. Since then, I have received ~5 e-mails requesting that I be prompt as to respect the other students who would be in the meeting as well as President Crow himself. Imagine my anger when Crow's schedule changed the day of the meeting and despite Crow arriving ~40 minutes late, I received no e-mail. Essentially, his time is important enough that we be absolutely sure we not waist his time, however he need not take regard to wasting ours. Even more upsetting was that there were no apologies, rather only one of his assistants mentioning while we (students) were waiting that "his schedule got changed this morning."

Once Crow did arrive, we started with a run around the table for introductions and chit chat (read: more wasted time). This was especially troubling as there were ~30 students in attendance... not exactly the "one on one" originally advertised.

Finally we got rolling with the discussion. This discussion could best be described as "rapid fire bouncy ball" as one student would raise their issue / question, take in Crow's response, and the discussion went where the wind took it. Sometimes the topic stayed focused and the student at its origin was able to effectively express their point of view. Other times the original topic was quickly related to another issue. Crow a few times discounted the argument all together saying essentially, "I agree, but it is out of my hands," and a few times created an action item to immediately remedy the issue.

I was obviously left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth in terms of Crow's "office hours," but I would be a fool to complain without offering some rectifying solutions. Being that I am not necessarily an authority on holding office hours I asked a few professors "What are the keys to holding effective office hours?"

Read their responses after the jump...

Here are their responses:

• Encourage attendance - be friendly and laid back when speaking of office hours as to make students feel like they can easily drop in anytime.


• Be there - If you cannot keep to your regularly scheduled office hours, provide all students plenty of notice (MyASU and e-mail are great mediums). If a student tries to come to office hours one time and you are not there, they will likely never come back, and that is a bad thing.


• Listen, listen, listen, listen, ask for any needed clarifications, then listen more. Many times students come to office hours they either just want to have a chance to tell all, and other times the issue is often solved by determining the root cause which you really have to be careful about pinpointing early.


• Students are representatives (often unconciously) - if one student brings up an issue in office hours, there are almost certainly many more students in class with the same question / issue / concern.

President Crow, I hope that you learned more from last week's office hours than I did.